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student life

It has now been a week since my return to St. Lawrence College for the fall semester and honestly…it has been a blur. As a matter of reflection, I want to write a few words about my experience coming back to the School of Business for Year 3, and the best tool to explain how I feel is my experience with the 2014 edition of our Get Your Horns Onfundraiser.

For those who know nothing about this fundraising drive, it involves the mobilization of most of the School of Business and the sale of MANY horned Viking hats. The money raised goes to the college’s Business Student Initiative fund, which allows business students to take part in special projects, as well as directing money to other worthy causes such as KIVA, TEDx, and the Ryan Taylor bursary. You can find out more at the link above.

I have to admit that as a 3rd year student, I did not experience the same verve and drive this time around. I have a distinct memory of having my competitive juices flowing freely last year, and I think this is a phenomenon shared by many upper year students. This does not mean that I (or others) see the fundraiser as any less a worthy activity, but I felt myself being far more concerned with sorting out my student loans, class schedule, and figuring out my lifestyle logistics for the busy final year that we have been promised by the faculty.

I recognized my lack of inspiration for GYHO from Day 1, so instead of forcing the issue I tried to draw upon my love for volunteering by playing more of a cheerleading and helping role for the Orientation Leadership. Roughly speaking, this means that I took my joy from handing out helmets and encouraging the first and second-year students to put their best foot forward.

In the end, my fundraising totals were far below last year, but I eventually did find great inspiration in the ingenuity and work ethic of our new business students. The blurry picture above was a team that became especially notable to me because they were able to pull together an incredible amount of donations, gift cards and swag from local businesses in the span of 2-5 hours. From my perch in the Student Association lounge, watched them make many phonecalls on that first day and simply could not believe the kind of community support they were able to drum up in an afternoon.

Impressive as that was, the team above did not take home the grand prize. That went to another group of new students who became recognizable to me because I met all five of them selling helmets downtown at 9PM on Wednesday night. If you are willing to sell helmets downtown in the dark, you are showing the perspiration necessary to do very well in our School of Business…So they really must be congratulated for that, as well as for inspiring my pride in our student body.

Thanks again to all of the teams for their hard work. Thank you to the faculty for giving their time and energy. Thank you to our amazing Orientation Leadership in Emily and Beth for bringing it all together. Now…if I can only memorize my fall schedule, then maybe this year will turn out just fine.